What impact do issues of culture, religion and identity have on Turkey's chances of joining the EU? Are religious and cultural factors per se the primary obstacle to Turkish accession, or is it their interaction with other factors that is prolonging and complicating Turkey's progress towards EU membership? Mirela Bogdani here analyses the complex range of issues that are influencing the process of Turkey's accession to the EU, assesses the positions of different European actors towards Turkey's pursuit of EU membership and identifies the reasons for the European opposition. She also analyses the issues of political Islam, multiculturalism and the compatibility of Islam with democracy. This book will be an important resource for anyone interested in EU politics, EU enlargement policy, EU-Turkey relations, the relationship between religion and politics, political Islam, multiculturalism and supranational integration.

This title was first published in 2003.The book presents an analysis of the development of the European Union's policy towards Turkey from a comparative perspective and compares the EU's approach to the issues in the EU-Turkey relationship. However, the literature on EU-Turkey relations is excessively rigid, antiquated and opinionated, reflecting the stylized version of the official approaches to issues between the two. With this in mind, the primary objective of this study is to contribute to the literature by using a comparative approach to analyse these relations. Human rights, the Greco-Turkish dispute and the security considerations of both parties are chosen as specific policy issues. Moreover, the book adopts a new approach and covers several of the key topics in the EU enlargement debate. Finally, it explores the question as to whether the EU's containment policy will be sustainable in the long term and examines possible scenarios for both parties.

Turkish accession to the European Union is an important but controversial item on the agenda of the European Union. By focusing on the various domestic sources that drive Turkish politics, this comprehensive study of both classic and new topics supported by fresh, new insights fills a void in the current literature on Turkey-EU relations. This volume is a comprehensive, state of the art study of domestic politics and policies and their role in Turkey’s EU accession. Contributions are obtained from established scholars, acknowledged for their expertise in their respective fields. The content is structured along issues, dynamics, actors and policies that drive Turkish politics and it provides an integrated assessment of the dynamics in Turkey-EU relations to general readers, students and specialists in EU Enlargement and Turkish politics alike. Original contributions to ‘classic’ topics such as the customs union, human rights, military, civil society, public and elite opinion, political parties and the Kurdish issue are made by assessing the domestic sources of recent developments during the negotiations period. In addition, ‘new’ topics are included that previously have not been covered or analyzed in volumes on Turkish-EU relations such as the Alevi issue, European Turks, corruption in Turkey, and Turkish parliamentary elite opinion on Turkey and the EU. This book was published as a special issue of South European Society and Politics.

Seminar paper from the year 2009 in the subject Politics - International Politics - Topic: European Union, grade: A-, University of Basel (Europainstitut), language: English, abstract: Authors have proved hypothesis: Turkey's military capabilities, experience in NATO and international peace keeping operations and missions could rather strengthen than weaken ESDP position. However, there are some weaknesses that Turkey faces (focus on 'hard' rather than 'soft' power, military is in the process of modernizing, underestimated role in peace keeping operations), Turkey's contribution to ESDP is too significant (strong involvement in the missions) and will give more benefits than costs. Furthermore, Turkish accession to the EU would transform strategic challenges of ESDP.51 Only five of twenty ESDP peace keeping operations have been of a military nature, which mostly has been held by NATO or UN. "When it comes to much bigger military issues, the EU avoids taking strategic responsibility and still depends on the NATO to do its 'dirty work'"52. Therefore military stronger EU would give NATO and UN credit that EU is also responsible in the field of crisis management. Such win-win situation would exempt US Secretary's of State Madeleine Albright's the "3 D's" 1) decoupling of ESDP from NATO, 2) duplication of capabilities, 3) discrimination of non-EU NATO members.53 Turkey would also play role of agent between EU and NATO and "parties involved will benefit from threelevel game"54 (EU-Turkey-NATO). Therefore it is advantageous and beneficial not only for Turkey, but also for the EU and the NATO as well.55 Finally, last week Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn once more showed that EU would not allow Turkey 'cruise control' on accession.56 Therefore Turkey-EU relations should balance the contributions and benefits of such partnership and show that both partners can be producers and consumers of security and experience of defence. Such dialogue will prove that EU can play an imp

In recent years, Turkey has become an ever more important actor on the international stage. However, Turkey-EU relations still remain in a state of flux. The EU and Turkey seem to have moved apart in their political aspirations after Turkey’s EU accession talks faced a stalemate over the Republic of Cyprus’ EU accession as a divided island. Likewise, both Turkey and the EU have recently faced new socio-political realities, such as the Eurozone crisis, the Arab Spring and the Turkish government’s shifting foreign policy towards the Middle East region. Such developments have rendered EU membership potentially a less desirable prospect for an increasingly self-confident Turkey. In light of these recent events, this book explores the evolving challenges and opportunities facing the more than 50-year old Turkey-EU relationship. This volume focuses particularly on the role of the Cyprus issue, the potential for closer Turkey-EU cooperation in the aftermath of the Arab Spring, the impact on Turkish citizens and politics, as well as the concept of Europeanization, especially in relation to Turkey’s democratic reform process. In drawing together perspectives from the disciplines of international relations, political science and law, this book offers a unique, interdisciplinary outlook towards the changing role of Europe in Turkey’s political discourse. This book will be of interest to researchers and students of Turkey-EU relations, EU external relations Law, Europeanization and Turkish and Middle Eastern politics.

European views on Turkey’s membership in the EU have been split between those in support of its full integration and those advocating a privileged partnership. To the extent that many of the latter proposals imply that Turkey will be partially integrated within Europe in certain areas, the question of Turkey’s accession is probably not about ‘if’, but about ‘how much’ integration there will be within the Union’s structures. The purpose of this book is not to offer a definitive response to this question. The book aims instead to examine the complexity of the issues pertaining to Turkey’s prospective EU membership by presenting several, often divergent, accounts of the political, security and socio-economic dimensions of the entire process. The book provides a forum for an exchange of views among distinguished scholars and researchers from different national backgrounds in order to contribute to the ongoing public discussion of Turkey’s accession. Sophisticated, informative and refreshing in its argumentation, the book provides an excellent overview of the complexities of Turkey’s accession to the EU membership. Professor Mustafa Aydin, TOBB University of Economics and Technology A refreshing view from the European periphery, an original mirror of the Union's central challenges. Professor Georges Prevelakis, University of Paris 1 – Panthéon-Sorbonne

In contemporary history, a much-debated issue has been whether European nations have a common identity and what relevance the European Union has for a shared definition of Europeanness. The present book examines the link between historical conceptions of Europe and the contestations over Turkey’s compatibility with the European Union during the 2000s.

These papers examine the history behind Turkey's application for EU membership. The contributors tackle the thorny issues of Cyprus, Turkey's attitude towards a common defence policy and Turkish parliamentarians' views on the nation's relations with the European Union.

The question of Turkish membership in the European Union is highly controversial and subject to many misperceptions and misunderstandings on both sides. This book examines the politics of EU accession which have evolved during the expansion of the EU, from more procedural conditions to provisions of substantive democracy. With a particular focus on the challenges Turkey faces to join the EU, the authors examine the experiences of the newly-democratised and acceded Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia to provide insight and to identify the best possible solutions. Combining the Turkish and Central European perspectives in one volume, and using a social constructivist approach, the authors address issues including Euroscepticism, EU absorption capacity, women’s rights, democratisation, Turkish Kamalism, the desecuritisation of Turkish politics and the problem of Northern Cyprus. This volume establishes the challenges the EU, its member states and the candidate countries need to face and successfully address in order to contribute to both their democratization and the European integration process. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of European politics, Turkish politics and international politics.

Although Turkey has a long-held aspiration for European Union membership and has been a candidate for more than a decade, relations between the EU and Turkey have not received the attention it deserves from non-Turkish researchers thus far, and consequently the international literature on EU-Turkey relations is rather limited. In light of recent global economic and political challenges for the EU and Turkey, a need has emerged for an interdisciplinary approach to study EU-Turkey relations within the wider international political and economic context. Turkey's Accession to the European Union: Political and Economic Challenges, edited by Belgin Ak ay and Bahri Yilmaz, provides a timely overview of some of the most important issues and debates in the changing context of Europe, the change in domestic politics and foreign policy in Turkey, and the likely implications of these changes and developments for EU-Turkey relations. Within this framework, this collection includes articles emphasizing Turkey's reform process with a view to EU accession, despite EU's reservations about "absorbing" Turkey and the eventual decoupling of the Turkish reform process from European integration, as well as searching for alternative forms of cooperation or transitional arrangements which may be possible for Turkey at the time of accession.